Category Archives: Ubuntu

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When I started programming, the world was black and white. I’d write my code in Vi on Unix ( Sequent’s dynix/ptx if you want to get personal) and then run it through a compiler to find any errors. End of story, [Esc]:wq!.
Then, along came GUI IDEs with their white backgrounds and syntax colouring.
Things now seem to have come full circle as the colour schemes currently en vogue for IDEs tend to look a bit like this :

Finding a lightweight, general purpose IDE for Linux has been something of a quest for me. It’s not that there aren’t any out there, it’s just that none of them quite seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Until now.

Look, I know that programmers tend to be rather attached to their favourite editor/IDE and this post is not an attempt to prise anyone away from their current toolset. It is simply an account of how I managed to install and configure Visual Studio Code in Ubuntu to use for Python.

Hang on, lightweight ? We’re talking about Microsoft Visual Studio, right ?
Actually, Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a rather different beast from the Visual Studio Professional behemoth that’s used for knocking up .Net applications on Windows.

In technological terms, this is an amazing time to be alive.
In many ways, the advances in computing over the last 20-odd years have changed the way we live.
The specific advance that concerns me in this post is the ability to securely and remotely connect from my computer at home, to the computer in the office.
These days, remote working of this nature often requires the Citrix Receiver to be installed on the client machine – i.e. the one I’m using at home.
In my case, this machine is almost certainly running a Linux OS.
This shouldn’t be a problem. After all, the Citrix Receiver is available for Linux. However, as with any application available on multiple platforms, any bugs may be specific to an individual platform.
I was reminded of this recently. Whilst my Windows and Mac using colleagues were able to use the Citrix Receiver with no problems, I found the lack of a working keyboard when connecting to my work machine something of a handicap.
What follows is a quick overview of the symptoms I experienced, together with the diagnosis of the issue. Then I go through the workaround – i.e. uninstalling the latest version of the Receiver and installing the previous version in it’s place.Continue reading →

“Github ?” said Deb, “sounds like a chat room for grumpy old men. You should fit right in !”
To be fair, neither of us were in a particularly good mood at the time.
Deb had just been made to sit through the Rugby World Cup Final whilst my emergency backup nationality had finally born fruit.
All I said to her was that it’s nice to be able to support a real country rather than a mere principality, like Wales. Honestly, some people are so touchy.

For my part, I had just discovered that Github, based on the Git source control system written by Linus Torvalds himself, has integrated clients for Windows and Mac, but not for Linux.

No matter. If you want to interact with Github, you’ll need to have Git installed on your client machine anyway and, mine being Linux, there are a number of GUIs available for Git.

Aside from the Git documentation itself, which is extensive, there are a number of excellent guides to both Git and Github available.
Rather than re-hashing these – although I will link some of them – I’m going to look at things from a slightly different perspective.

Throughout my career, I’ve been, first and foremost, a database developer.
Way back when, choices of version control systems were rather limited. In a professional sense, I grew up with PVCS and Visual Source Safe.
Even later on, the fact that Oracle Forms and Reports were binary source code meant that the Edit-Merge paradigm of source control was something that tended not to gain traction in the Oracle Shops that I worked in.

Later on, in larger organisations, Perforce was the tool of choice, although always with the comforting P4Win ( and later P4V) front-end.

So, I’d rather like the comfort of a GUI, if only to see that the files I think I’ve checked in are actually there.

Additionally, Github uses an enhanced version of the Markdown language for text files. It would be nice to be able to preview these files before uploading them to the repository.

It was my turn to “cook” tonight. Deb was quite emphatic on that point. Continuing the fine and long-held tradition, sustained through generations of British manhood, I duly trudged down to the chippy.
Fish and chips, with that unique and exquisite smell of malt vinegar. Never mind all those fancy aftershaves, for us Brits it’s Sarsons…pour homme.
Except that, when I get to the shop, I find that I have no cash on me and they don’t accept cards.
No, not even “Chip and Pin”.
Eventually, the hunter gatherer returns ( having made a short detour to an ATM) to be greeted by the now ravenous family. Honestly, this cooking lark is all go.

It could be worse I suppose. I mean, the recipe for Victoria Sponge doesn’t suddenly stop working for no readily apparent reason, unlike, to take a random example, installing Oracle XE on Mint and Ubuntu.

When I wrote the original post, all was working perfectly. Mint 11, Oracle XE 11g, job done.
However, Mint 13 ( or Maya, if you prefer) is a bit of a different story. So, for that matter is Ubuntu 11.10 and above.

At this point, I’d like to say a big thanks to Gil Standen, whose comment on the original post was spot on in pin-pointing and solving this issue.

So, if you’ve found your way here having been frustrated in your installation attempts by this pesky error, what follows is an explanation of the issue, together with the steps that I used to resolve it on Mint 13. Continue reading →

For those of us who use Linux on the Desktop, it’s probably fair to say that we live in interesting times. Having sat on the fence that is Gnome 2, whilst looking on as the relative merits of Gnome Shell, Unity, KDE and XFCE are hotly debated, I was recently given a fresh perspective on this particular debate by the lovely Debbie.

What follows is the story of how Deb converted to Linux, told (for reasons which will become apparent) through the medium of fairytale. Continue reading →

This post was going to begin with one of my occasional bulletins on the fortunes of Luton Town, beloved club of my mate, Simon. However, the man himself has been bitten by the blogging bug and the resultant musings on all things Teradata ( and various other topics) can be seen here.
So instead, I’d invite you to consider the Nordic majesty that is Milford Sound. Nestled in the heart of Fjordland in New Zealand’s South Island, this watery expanse evokes awe and wonder, even in a land where jaw-dropping scenery is always just around the next bend.
Milford Sound was itself named after the equally picturesque sounding Milford Haven. Yes, Milford Haven in Wales, site of one of the largest oil terminals in Europe.
I should note at this point that the Welsh Ambassador has demanded that I point out that Milford Haven does have some nice bits.

Moving swiftly on, in the vain hope of avoiding domestic disharmony, my point is, the fact that two things share common characteristics doesn’t mean that they are necessarily identical.

All of which provides a somewhat tortuous link to the subject of this post, namely, setting up remote desktop access via a VPN on Mint.

Now, you’d think this was pretty much the same as on Ubuntu, and it is…up to a point. Continue reading →

Things have been a bit hectic lately. What with putting in a new kitchen, being insanely busy at work, and trying not to come out with embarrassing sheep jokes, I’ve ended up with quite a long list of things to do blog-wise.
Top of the list, until now, was installing the long-awaited Oracle 11gXE Release 2 onto one of my Linux machines.
Yes, the free version of Oracle’s RDBMS has finally had an upgrade from 10g and I really want to get my hands on it and have a good nose around.
As well as being based on the latest release of the RDBMS, the Express Edition has had one or two other improvements added. Maybe the most significant of these is that the limit for the amount of user data that XE can hold has been increased from 4GB to 11GB.
What I’m going to do here is :

Go through the package conversion process

Install the database using steps applicable both to Mint and Ubuntu ( and any other Debian based distro)

Apply some finishing touches so that the menu items work as intended

Along the way, we’ll find out just why Oracle can’t speak English (and lots of other languages), where Mint has hidden the .bashrc, and how Aliens can be friendly.

Because I’m trying to cover both distros in this post, the installation process will be done entirely on the command line. Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

But first…a small morsel of Linux history. Debian, the distro upon which both Mint and Ubuntu are based, was named after a Deb. I had to mention that as this will cause my beloved to think that I’m writing about her ( again), and thus give me enough time to finish writing this !